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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961368">The Last Day We Were Children</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/marycontraire/pseuds/marycontraire'>marycontraire</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nor Pomp Nor Blare [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Gen, M/M, missing moment</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:00:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961368</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/marycontraire/pseuds/marycontraire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Seamus conquers one of his fears, and Dean discovers a new one.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Seamus Finnigan &amp; Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nor Pomp Nor Blare [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1094472</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Last Day We Were Children</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to sarapod for the beta!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="small">All lessons were suspended, all examinations postponed. Some students were hurried away from Hogwarts by their parents over the next couple of days — the Patil twins were gone before breakfast on the morning following Dumbledore’s death and Zacharias Smith was escorted from the castle by his haughty-looking father. Seamus Finnigan, on the other hand, refused point-blank to accompany his mother home; they had a shouting match in the Entrance Hall which was resolved when she agreed that he could remain behind for the funeral. She had difficulty in finding a bed in Hogsmeade, Seamus told Harry and Ron, for wizards and witches were pouring into the village, preparing to pay their last respects to Dumbledore.<br/>
<i>--Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince</i></span>
</p><p> </p><p>“That was bloody brilliant, mate,” Dean says as he charges into the dormitory.</p><p>“Glad you enjoyed it,” Seamus says, standing by his four-poster, back to Dean and the door.  “Because I certainly didn’t.”</p><p>Dean’s plan to collapse on Seamus’s bed is thwarted by the fact that Seamus seems to have upended every one of his worldly possessions onto it.  He sprawls over his own instead, which is just as well: the beds in the dormitory have been slowly, steadily growing along with their occupants, which means that the bed Dean chose six years ago is now fairly enormous, long enough to fit all six-and-a-half feet of him, while the bed Seamus chose is probably not much larger than the ones in the current Fourth Years’ dorm.  “I knew you had it in you to finally stand up to her.  The Sorting Hat would never have put you in Gryffindor if you were destined to be a coward forever.”</p><p>Seamus flips him the bird, which does nothing to discourage the enormous grin Dean can feel stretching his face sideways.  He can’t help it: he’s been waiting years for Seamus to tell his mother to piss off.  Well, not in so many words, but still.  Seamus, though, doesn’t appear to be sharing in his good humor.  He’s frowning at a stack of parchment rolls and school books that he’s trying to jam into the removable top shelf of his trunk.   “What are you doing anyway?” Dean asks.</p><p>“Packing,” Seamus says, throwing Dean an are-you-an-idiot look from beneath his eternally overgrown sandy fringe.  “She says we’re leaving directly after the funeral.”</p><p>This reminder of the reason for Seamus’s screaming row with his mother sobers Dean somewhat.  Dumbledore’s death still feels distant and unreal to Dean; he never had much personal contact with the headmaster, but he always regarded him as a sort of superhuman guardian, standing between the school and the growing dangers of the outside world.  He cannot help imagining that he’s still up in his office, plotting and stirring his thoughts in that Penseive bowl Harry told the DA about.  Perhaps it will sink in at the funeral tomorrow; perhaps not.  </p><p>Seamus attempts to fold a pile of his shirts with a spell they learned two years ago in Charms; he grunts in frustration when the shirts sloppily roll themselves up and arrange themselves into a lazy pile.  </p><p><i>“Complicaté!”</i> Dean says with a flick of his wand, and the shirts instantly fold into uniform rectangles and stack themselves.  </p><p>“How do you <i>do</i> that?” Seamus demands, half-annoyed and half-impressed.</p><p>Dean shrugs smugly.  “There’s a trick.”</p><p>Seamus throws a pair of balled-up socks at his face and calls him a gobshite.  At least the socks are clean.</p><p>“It’s not a magic trick, wanker,” Dean says.  “The spell just only folds as well as  you can fold by hand.  It used to look crap when I did it, too, until I got the summer job at Topman.  That right there is the product of weeks of board-folding by hand.”</p><p>Seamus grins.  “Guess your dad was right, then.  Hard work really does pay off, you wastrel.”</p><p>“I never tell my parents when they’re right about things,” Dean says.  “As, like, policy.”</p><p>Seamus moves Dean’s neat stack of shirts into his trunk, and Dean casts the folding spell on his trousers, sweaters, boxers, and undershirts, rearranging the mess on the bed into orderly stacks.  He’s motivated more by the desire to show off than any eagerness to actually help. When Seamus has finished levitating the stacks of his clothing into the trunk, he sits down on the edge of his bed, on the side facing Dean.  “My mam is right, too,” he mumbles.  </p><p>“About yanking you out of school and dragging you home before they’ve even buried him?” Dean says, indignant.</p><p>“No, not about that, obviously,” Seamus says.  “But she’s right that we’re not safe anymore, if we ever were in the first place.”</p><p>“Seamus,” Dean says, sitting up and rearranging himself to lean against his headboard.  “Dumbledore wasn’t the only wizard standing between Voldemort and the rest of us.”</p><p>“Wasn’t he?” Seamus says.</p><p>“No, he wasn’t.  There’s still the Order of the Phoenix.  The Aurors’ Office -- they can’t all be bad.  And the DA.  And Harry.  He’s faced him before.”</p><p>Seamus is picking at his cuticles, a particular nervous habit of his, and his voice somehow gets even quieter when he says, “My mam says that the last time they went after Muggle-borns first.  Muggle-borns and known resistance fighters.”</p><p>“Color me shocked.”</p><p>“You’re <i>both,</i> Dean.”</p><p>“As far as we know,” Dean reminds him.</p><p>Seamus makes a wordless sound of what could be either exasperation or genuine fear, and Dean feels a wave of unease when he realizes it’s more likely the latter.  “As far as <i>anyone</i> knows, you’re Muggle-born.  And we have to assume the Death Eaters know you’re in the DA as well -- you were on that hexed list Hermione made, and Umbridge could have shown it to anybody once she got her hands on it.”</p><p>In truth, Dean had forgotten all about that list, and for the first time he’s grateful for Seamus’s fight with Harry last year, grateful that Seamus’s name, at least, wasn’t on it.  “Doesn’t matter,” Dean says.  “If they’re really is a war, I’m going to fight, so I have a target on my back regardless.”  Dean is aware he sounds brave when he says this, but in reality speculating “if there really is a war” feels about as likely as “if I really become a professional quidditch player.”  The idea that the school might close, that Dean might be anywhere other than this very dorm come September, feels as foreign and fantastical to him as Dumbledore’s death.  </p><p>Seamus clearly doesn’t share Dean’s disbelief. Several of his cuticles have started bleeding where he’s picked them down to the quick.  Dean leans forward, reaching one long arm across the space between their beds to stop Seamus from continuing to pick. He’s surprised when Seamus grasps his hand in both of his own. </p><p>“I’m scared, Dean,” Seamus says.</p><p>“But you’ll fight anyway,” Dean says.  It isn’t really a question.</p><p>Seamus nods, hands still clutching Dean’s.  “Doubt I’ll have much of a choice.  I know my mam thinks I’ll be safer in Ireland, but I’m not so sure.  Harry’s been saying that You-Know-Who’s out recruiting werewolves, and you know Ireland is lousy with them.  You Brits used to exile yours there back in the eighteenth century.”</p><p>“Maybe Professor Lupin’s gotten through to some of them,” Dean says.  His arm is starting to ache from being stretched out between their beds for so long, but Dean feels strangely reluctant to withdraw it.</p><p>“Maybe,” Seamus agrees.  “Gonna miss your ugly mug when I’m stuck on my dad’s muggle fishing boat though.  And I’ll miss your snoring.”</p><p>“I don't snore, wanker,” Dean says, whacking Seamus on the arm and rolling back into a more comfortable position on his bed.</p><p>“That’s your story.  Perhaps we should poll our other roommates, eh?”</p><p>“Fuck off,” Dean says good-naturedly.  </p><p>“I suppose you’ll have to kiss and make up with Ron and Harry, then,” Seamus says, flopping back on his own bed.  “Unless you want to spend all your time with Neville once I’m gone.”</p><p>Somehow, it is this unlikely remark that at last cuts through the cloud of Dean’s denial and disbelief.  Once Seamus is <i>gone.</i>  He feels it then: the stab of fear, the sudden, terrifying certainty that he will never see Seamus again.  Dumbledore is dead.  The wizarding world stands on the precipice of open war.  Forget the odds of Hogwarts beginning the new term in September according to plan; one of them -- both of them -- could be dead by then.</p><p>“Don’t go,” Dean says, and the urgency of his tone instantly wipes the teasing smirk off Seamus’s face.</p><p>“Come again?” he says, sitting up.</p><p>Dean stands, looming over Seamus in the space between their two four-posters.</p><p>“Don’t go with your mother.  I don’t want you to go.”</p><p>Seamus laughs nervously.  “Don’t exactly have a choice, mate,” he says.</p><p>“Bullshit,” Dean says harshly.  “You always have a choice.”</p><p>“She’s my <i>mam,</i> Dean.  I’m still a kid.”</p><p>Technically, Seamus isn’t wrong: although Dean reached the wizarding age of majority in January, Seamus won’t turn seventeen until August.  It suddenly seems a silly distinction.  None of them have the luxury of childhood any longer. </p><p>“I <i>have</i> to go,” Seamus says hollowly.  </p><p>“Then I’ll find you,” Dean resolves.  He leans over to bring his face closer to level with Seamus’s and grabs the back of Seamus’s neck somewhat roughly.  “No matter what happens.  I’ll find you and I’ll come for you.”  He shakes Seamus slightly as he says it, but Seamus holds his gaze regardless.</p><p>“I believe you,” he says, sounding slightly hoarse.</p><p>Dean nods and squeezes the back of Seamus’s neck for what seems like a long moment, memorizing the feeling of the taut tendons there, the tickle of Seamus’s straight hair beneath his large palm.  </p><p>Eventually, though, he has to let go.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You guise, I desperately wanted them to make out in this!  But they were just not having it.  I don't think Seamus is going to get over his internalized homophobia/Dean is going to buy a clue until AFTER they've been forcibly separated and terrified of Voldemort for a whole year.  Le sigh.  I guess I have more writing to do?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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